At work, we have one NCD HMXpro and one NCD HMX X-terminals. Both of them
have a MIPS R4600 processor; the pro at 133 MHz and the other @100 MHz.
Otherwise they are identical. They have two custom ASICs as coprossors.
I would assume that these would be able to run NetBSD/mips if we can get
the right devices configured for them, and that there may be hundreds, if
not thousands, of these lying around not being used. I saw a couple of
these mentioned in the mailing list archives when searching for HMX.
Also, in http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-mips/2000/05/16/0001.html, Toru
Nishimura <nisimura@itc.aist-nara.ac.jp> writes about a lot of other MIPS
computers that could be candidates for the MIPS port, but I don't see any
of these mentioned at:
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/#suggested-ports
If we could get NetBSD running on these, they would be excellent machines.
Even today, the X performance is pretty decent, even though they can only
deliver 8 bpp. There are 24-bit models in the same family called HMXpro24.
If someone decides to do something about this, then I would be willing to
test this on our HMX boxes occasionally, but at present I lack the
resources needed to do this port myself. Besides, both of these terminals
are in daily use.
I am not on the port-mips mailing list yet, but if something happens that
makes the HMX family of X-terminals a viable port, I will subscribe to it.
I am sorry about the noise on this list, but I have been thinking about
this for a long time, and decided to let people know what I think.
I have been a bit active in the NetBSD/arm32 port, and I also have
NetBSD/sparc and NetBSD/i386 up and running. NetBSD/arm26 is next, and if
someting happens on NetBSD/hp700, I will work on that as well.
TIA!
Kjetil B.
mailto:kjetil@thomassen.priv.no
http://www.thomassen.priv.no/